Our First Blog Post!

Welcome to Cūra Earth. You may be wondering what our organization is about and why we work in so many areas (human and animal health, wildlife and environmental conservation, international development, and education). The short answer is that to make a difference in any on of these areas, equal attention needs to be paid to the other discipline. Ecosystem health is really ecology at its most simple: if ecology is the study of living organisms and their relation to the environment and each other, then health is the same. One can’t study ecology without taking into account each piece of the environment and ecosystem, and try as humans might, we can’t step outside being part of the natural world.

So why is ecosystem health so important? It can seem like a complicated issue, with many different parts, but basically it boils down to the fact that every living creature, including humans, are dependent on the health and ecology of our world.Â Ecological disturbances, either human made or not, can disrupt the balance of infectious disease transmission between and within species. Â Pollution and the incredible amounts of new and old chemicals flooding our planet are linked to other forms of disease such as cancer, endocrine disorders, and asthma and allergies. Without first understanding the science behind how humans and domestic animals fit within the larger frame of wildlife, plants, and the rest of the environment, we will be helpless to manage health- both of humans and the planet.